Patient supporting device



May 8, 1962 L. P. STROUP PATIENT SUPPORTING DEVICE Filed Dec. 4, 1959 INVENTOR. 161/4 R STROUP lllaw United States Patent C 3,032,780 PATENT SUPPORTING DEVICE Lelia P. Stroup, Garden Grove, Calif, assignor to Sierra Engineering Co., Sierra Madre, Calif., a corporation of California Filed Dec. 4, 1959, Ser. No. 857,417 6 Claims. (Cl. -327) This invention relates to a device for supporting bedridden persons.

The care of bedridden persons necessarily involves turn- 7 ing them from side to side in order to change the bedding beneath them, or to render care to their back-sides. When the person is conscious and not disabled, he can, of course, cooperate, so that one nurse alone can do the necessary work. However, when the person is unconscious, or disabled such as when there are many physical involvements resulting from serious injuries, it is frequently necessary to have the services of several nurses at once, because the person is inert and cannot help at all. On hospital floors where nursing staffs are generally Shorthanded at best, this means that care which a patient really needs for his comfort and well-being must often be deferred until enough nurses can be made available at once, even though this patient might have the services of a special nurse. Thus, even though a special nurse is provided, some of the care received is no better, if as good, as general floor nursing service.

It is an object of this invention to provide a device whereby a helpless patient may be moved from side to side in a bed and held in that position so that the bed may be changed beneath him and services may be performed on him, which enables the patient to be managed by one nurse. This enables even a seriously injured person to be cared for by one nurse, and improves the standard of care he receives, because care can be given more frequently than merely at the infrequent times when a plurality of nurses can be drawn from their other duties at once.

This invention is carried out in combination with means on a bed to which may be attached a beam which forms part of thedevice. To this beam, which projects over the patient from said means, preferably from a side rail, an arm is slidably fitted so as to reach over the patient. The arm and beam bear respective cooperating portions ,of a retainer means so that the arm may be moved to a selected position and held there. To the arm and remote from the beam, there is supported a pad adapted to engage the patient whereby when the patient is moved on his side, the arm may be slid along the beam to hold the patient in an adjusted position, the retainer means serving to hold the arm until released.

According to preferred but optional features of this invention, the pad is fitted to the arm by swivel joint which enables the pad to adjust to the position of the patients body, the beam is provided with clamping means for attachment to a bed rail, and the retainer means cornprise a ratchet device.

The above and other features of this invention will be fully understood from the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation, partly in cutaway crosssection taken at line 1-1 of FIG. 2, of a support device according to the invention;

FIG. 2 is a left-hand elevation of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary side elevation, partly in cutaway cross-section, showing an alternate embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 4 is a side elevation showing the device of FIG. 1 in use.

The presently-preferred embodiment of the invention is shown in FIG. 4, wherein a patient-support device is shown clamped to a side rail 11 on a hospital bed 12. A patient 13 is shown in an adjusted position on the bed and held in place by the device.

A beam 14 ('FIG. 1) is adapted to overhang the patient, and has at one of its ends clamp means 15 by which the device is attached to the bed rail. The clamp means includes curved portions 16 and 17 on the beam and on a jaw member 18, respectively. The jaw member has a finger 19 with a joggle at its end, which joggle passes through a hole 20 in the beam. -A headed bolt 21 passes through the jaw member and the beam, projecting above the beam where it is threadedly engaged to a nut 22 provided with a hand grip.

Tightening the screw onto the bolt draws the jaw in opposition to the beam so that curved surfaces 16, 17 clamp firmly upon the side rail to hold the beam thereto. It will be noted that beam 14 can be swiveled in a vertical plane around the bed rail to adapt to patients of diiferent size, or to different parts of the anatomy of the same patient. The device can be slid along the rail to the location where it is to be used by loosening the screw so as to loosen the grasp of the clamp means.

A plurality of longitudinally spaced teeth 23 are punched upwardly from the surface of the beam. They have a sloped ramp surface 24 on their left-hand side, as shown in FIG. 1, and an upright ratchet surface -25 on the right-hand side. These teeth form part of a retainer means, the other part of which comprises a springloaded pawl 26 which is pivotally mounted to an arm 27. This pawl is mounted to arm 27 by pin 28, and has a depending finger 29 loaded downwardly toward the teeth by bias spring 30. It will now be seen that pawl 26 together with teeth 23 form a ratchet which enables arm 27 to be freely slid to the right in FIG. 1, but which prevents it from moving to the left until the pawl is released.

The beam passes through a passage 31 in arm 27. Arm 27 depends from the beam and suspends a pad 32 at its free end. The pad may have a cupped side surface 33 for engagement with the body of the patient, but it is to be understood that it can have any suitable surface, and be made of any suitable material. Generally, smooth, clear plastic materials such as Kralastic, Plexiglas, or equivalent, will be utilized.

A swivel mount is provided for pad 32. This mount comprises a countersink screw 34 which is threaded into an insert '35 in arm 27. Insert 35 is metal and is cast into arm 27 to provide stronger threads than can be formed in the material of the arm, which latter is usually made of plastic or some other material lighter, less expensive, and easier to form, than metal. The shank of screw 34 projects beyond the arm and extends through the pad. The screwhead. is spaced beyond the arm a distance greater than the corresponding thickness of the pad, and the diameter of hole 36 is enough larger than the diameter of the shank that the pad is swivelly mounted. The countersink 37 in the pad is deeper than the screwhead is tall, so that even when the pad is pressed against the arm, the bolt does not project beyond the right-hand surface of the pad where it might scratch the patient.

FIG. 3 illustrates that the pad need not be swivelly mounted to the arm, and thus illustrates an alternate embodiment for the device. Pad 40 is formed integral with arm 27 and dispenses with the complication of the swivel mount. While the mount contributes to patient comfort, it is not essential to the device.

The use of the support device should be evident from the drawings. Ordinarily, two of these devices will be provided for each patient, one being applied to the shoulders of the patient and the other to his buttocks. When work needs to be done, either on the back-side of the patient or on the bed beneath him, the nurse may reach over rail l1 and draw the patient on his side toward the bed rail, with beam 14 projecting above the patient, and the arm on the other side of him. Then arm 27 is drawn toward the rail, the ratchet permitting the arm to be drawn toward the rail, but preventing it from moving back unless the ratchet is released. When the pad firmly engages and supports the patient toward the rail (although not necesarily directly against it), the patient is thereby held against rolling back, and this is accomplished without the need for services of other nurses. The plurality of nurses needed for this work without the device largely serve to hold the patient, and do not aid in rendering the services directly on the patient. With the devices according to the invention in place, the nurse may then go to the other side of the bed and perform such manipulations as may be necessary, and nursing time need not be wasted in merely supporting the patient. Thereafter, latch 26 may be released, and the arm backed off away from rail ll so that the patient may be rolled onto his back. In the event the patient now needs to be moved in the other direction, similar devices may be set up on the bed rail on the opposite side of the bed, and the same operations repeated.

This invention thereby provides a means whereby one nurse by herself may perform services on a patient which heretofore have required three or four nurses to do, and this with no danger or inconvenience to the patient. In fact, the patient is greatly benefitted by this, inasmuch as one nurse is frequently available, whereas a number of nurses can be assembled for routine care only with difiiculty.

It will be recognized that means other than ratchets could be used as restraining means, for example, springloaded ball detent means and the like, the ratchet shown merely being one inexpensive and convenient means for restraining the arm.

This invention is not to be limited by the embodiments shown in the drawings and described in the description which are given by Way of example and not of limitation, but only in accordance with the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. Apparatus for supporting a patient in a bed comprising a beam, means for connecting the beam to one side rail of the bed with the beam extending in a direction from said one side rail transversely of the bed and substantially horizontally at a level above that of a patient lying in the bed, an arm extending down from the beam and slidable'longitudinally of the beam, means for releasably securing the arm against unintended movement of the arm along the beam in one direction, patient-contacting means supported by the arm and disposed at the level of a patient in the bed and having a patient-contacting surface facing in a direction opposite said one direction for hearing against the patient to support the patient against moving sidewise in said one direction in the bed.

2. Apparatus for supporting a patient in a bed comprising a ratch beam, means at one end of the beam for supporting the beam on one side rail of the bed with the i beam extending transversely of the bed and substantially horizontally at a level above that of a patient lying in the bed, an arm extending down from the beam and slidable longitudinally of the beam, pawl means operatively 5 associated with the ratch beam and the arm for preventing unintended movement of the arm along the beam in one direction and permitting relatively free reversal of motion, patient-contacting means connected to the lower end portion of the arm and at a level of a patient in the bed and having a patient-contacting surface facing in a direction opposite said one direction for hearing against the patient to support the patient against moving sidewise in said one direction in the bed.

3. Apparatus for supporting a patient in a bed against unintended sidewise movement of the patient in the bed, the apparatus comprising a ratch beam, means at one end of the beam for releasably connecting the beam to one side rail of the bed with said beam extending in a direction from said side rail transversely of the bed and substantially horizontally at a level above that of a patent lying in the bed, the other end of the beam being a free end, an arm extending down from the beam and slidable back and forthlongitudinally of the beam, a pawl on the arm and operatively associated with the ratch beam for preventing unintended movement of the arm along the beam in a direction toward said free end and permitting relatively free movement of the arm along the beam in a direction toward said one end of the beam, a pad mounted on the lower end portion of the arm at a level of a patient in the bed, the pad having a patient-contacting surface facing in a direction toward said one end of the beam for bearing against the patient to support the patient against moving sideways in the bed in a direction toward the free end of the beam.

4. Apparatus according to claim 3 in which said beamconnecting means comprise a jaw member attached to said beam, and threaded means connected to and adapted to draw said jaw member toward the beam so as to hold the side rail therebetween.

5. Apparatus according to claim 3 in which the pad is swivelly mounted to the arm.

6. Apparatus according to claim 3 in which said pad is swivelly mounted to the arm, and means for swivelly mounting said pad comprising a countersink headed bolt threadedly engaged in the arm, said pad havinga countersunk hole therein, the countersunk portion of the hole in the pad being deeper than the countersink head on the bolt, and the diameter of the hole through the pad which receives the bolt being of a greater diameter than the bolt and the spacing of the bolt' head from the arm being greater than the thickness of the'pad, whereby the pad is swivelly mounted to the arm.

References Cited in the file of this patent 2,904,798 Heflin Sept. 22,1959 

